Fire + Water
("Fire Plus Water") is the twelfth episode of Season 2 of Lost and the 37th produced hour of the series as a whole. Charlie comes to the conclusion that Aaron must be baptized and be "saved", prompting him to recall his past of trying to save his brother. Meanwhile, the first signs of Hurley and Libby's relationship begin to show. Synopsis Previously on Lost *Sayid shows Charlie the downed beechcraft and shows him how the Virgin Mary statues are filled with bags of heroin. *Eko smashes Charlie's statue and shows Claire what's inside. She confronts Charlie, leading him to deny that he knew about the drugs. *Eko and Charlie burn the plane. Back at camp, Claire tells Charlie she doesn't want him sleeping near her and Aaron anymore. ♪ *Charlie brings another Virgin Mary statue to a hidden stockpile of them in the jungle. Flashback Karen, Liam's wife, has just given birth to their daughter, Megan, who is named after Liam and Charlie's mother. Charlie is there doting on the newborn but Liam is not there. Charlie tells Karen that Liam missed the flight because he blew a tire on the way to the airport. Karen asks if Liam is okay, Charlie responds "He's great. He's a dad." Charlie returns to his apartment where the Kinks are playing "He's Evil" (the same song he was singing to Jin in ) and finds Liam lying on his couch, "fixing" himself. Charlie encourages Liam to hurry to the hospital as soon as possible to see his new baby, but Liam is still in his own world, saying to Charlie "I left you some." Drive Shaft is filming an advertisement for Butties baby diapers. They are lip syncing to the song "You All Every Butties," a reworked version of their hit "You All Everybody." In order to save the band and make some money, Charlie needs Liam to get his act together, but Liam is too out of it and falls through the bars of the big child's crib in which they are filming. The ad producer tells Charlie to get rid of Liam, but Charlie says that it's his brother. They are all fired. Charlie tries to reach inside Liam and shake him back to life. But even after Charlie and Liam share a moment by singing together Charlie's new song about their comeback, (Together Now), about how they both "can be saved," Liam only has one question to Charlie: does he have any heroin. Charlie comes home and finds Liam has sold Charlie's piano to build a new life for his family in Australia. He leaves Charlie alone in London, still trying to find an answer; what about his family? On the Island }} In a dream, young Charlie comes down a flight of stairs in his slippers. It's Christmas morning and his brother Liam is already hard at work ripping open his presents. But while Liam continues to unwrap gift after gift, Charlie finds nothing at all for him. That is, until his mother leads him over to a brand new piano. Charlie is thrilled, but before he can even begin to enjoy the gift, he learns it comes with a price, with his mother wanting him to become successful so he can "save them." Suddenly Liam is an adult but wearing only diapers, while their father, a butcher, angrily cuts meat. Charlie, now fully grown, plays the piano, though it's now on the beach. Suddenly, he hears Aaron's cries from inside it. Charlie tries to open it up, but can't. The incoming tide then tips the piano over onto its back and it begins to drift away, apparently carrying Aaron out to sea. ♪ Charlie wakes up and checks to make sure Claire and Aaron are alright, and finds them with Locke. ♪ Charlie tries to get closer to Claire, but Claire asks for some space, for now. He leaves, telling Aaron to take care of his mom. Hurley approaches Sawyer and Kate and asks Sawyer about "the Tailies," Libby in particular. Sawyer asks if Hurley has a love connection growing there. Hurley denies this and leaves, embarrassed. Kate and Sawyer both see Ana Lucia and Jack coming out of the jungle, talking to each other. Sawyer mentions it's the third time that he has seen them together. It doesn't make either of them particularly comfortable. While Charlie plays his guitar on the beach, he hears the faint cries of a baby and follows the sound to the ocean, where he sees Aaron's cradle being tossed on the waves. He struggles to swim out and bring Aaron back to shore, where he discovers both Claire and his mother kneeling on the beach in robes, in angelic poses from a religious painting. Charlie is seeing a version of a religious painting from Charlie's childhood home. The angelic Claire and Charlie's mother repeat in unison: "The baby is in danger" and that Charlie "has to save him". A plane crashes in the background. A dove flies out of the sky, through the jungle, and past him out to sea. Hurley approaches him in biblical robes, asking what he's doing. Charlie wakes up in the night standing in the ocean holding the baby, realizing it was a vivid dream, while Hurley continues to ask what he's doing with the baby in the middle of the night. He tries to explain to Claire (and everyone else) that he was only trying to save him, but Claire slaps him across the face. Sawyer gives Hurley a small push towards a relationship with Libby, and the two of them do laundry together in the hatch. Hurley asks if he knows her from somewhere. She distracts him by changing her shirt in his presence. She tells him that he stepped on her toe on the plane when he boarded last. }} Charlie tries to enlist Locke as an ally, only to discover that Locke suspects Charlie is using heroin again. ♪ Charlie defends himself by saying that he and Eko burned the plane, and none of the Virgin Mary statues are left. Locke says trust is a hard thing to win back, and Claire needs her time. After unsuccessfully trying to enlist Locke, Charlie goes to Eko, who is marking trees because he "likes them". Eko suggests that Charlie's dreams mean something and could be a sign that he has to protect the baby. Eko suggests that the baby be baptized. Charlie goes to Claire with the idea, but is dismissed by Kate. Locke stands close by, watching Charlie, just like he did in his first days on the Island. ♪ In the jungle, Charlie finds his stash of heroin, ♪ but Locke appears. Charlie claims he came to finish the job and get rid of them all. But Locke doesn't believe him. He takes away all of the statues. ♪ Claire asks Locke whether she and Aaron can sleep in the hatch but Locke offers to move his things closer to her tent for a while. She asks him about baptism and how much he knows about it. Locke tells her his view, calling it "spiritual insurance" so the baby will go to heaven. He says that there is no danger to her or the baby. }} Charlie starts a fire near the survivors' camp, attempting to distract Claire from Aaron's crib. While Sayid leads an attempt to put out the fire, Charlie grabs Aaron and runs with him to the ocean to baptize him. ♪ Locke and several other survivors run over after they hear Claire's cries. Locke tries to convince Charlie to hand him the baby, but Charlie refuses, saying, "Aaron's not your responsibility. Where were you when he was born? Where were you when he was taken? You're not his father. You're not his family." Locke replies that neither is he. ♪ Charlie gives Locke the baby, who hands him to Claire. Charlie tries to apologize but Locke punches him three times in the face. Charlie stumbles and falls into the water. Everyone leaves Charlie in disgust. The next day, while Jack is nursing Charlie's wounds, Eko agrees to baptize Claire and her baby, to make sure that they will always be protected together. Locke puts the seven statues in the gun vault of the hatch. ♪ In the hatch, Locke changes the combination for the gun vault's door lock again. He carefully arranges the seven statues of the Virgin Mary on a shelf. Charlie sits on the beach alone and sullenly pulls his hoodie over his head. Trivia * During Charlie's dream, when his mother and Claire are on the beach, the drug smugglers' plane can be seen about to crash into the jungle. This is only visible in the widescreen (16:9) aspect ratio; the plane is cut off in the 4:3 version. * In a Catholic baptism, a Catholic godparent is required during the ceremony. Only under extreme circumstances, such as imminent death, would the requirement be waived. Claire and Aaron are baptized with no godparents. Moreover, Catholic doctrine forbids the baptism of an adult (such as Claire) unless they have professed faith in the basic truths of Christianity, but Mr. Eko did not ask Claire anything about her beliefs. * Eko's description of the baptism of Jesus is slightly incorrect. The Catholic Church (along with most other Christian denominations) teaches that Jesus was born without sin and remained sinless throughout his entire life. Although Eko was telling the story from John the Baptist's perspective, it still goes against the views of Catholicism and general Christianity. **It is possible that the two above errors were added to the script deliberately, since Eko had, to the knowledge of the audience, no formal religious training, and was therefore not fully versed in the traditions of the church or the scripture of the Bible. For this same reason, in The 23rd Psalm, the producers decided they liked the error the actor made when reciting the psalm. **It's also possible that Eko is influenced by a non-Catholic perspective by referring to Jesus's sin in terms of the burden of mankind's sin imputed to him. According to Protestant theology, Jesus lived a life of no moral guilt, though he nevertheless assumed 'legal' guilt in representation of humanity before God's lawful judgment. And so it is often said that man's sin became Jesus's sin, in that sense. Some commentators on Jesus's baptism therefore have interpreted his motivation for getting baptized as being apart of the process of redeeming mankind's sins, https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/why-was-jesus-baptized thus why Jesus said it was fitting to "fulfill all righteousness". *When Hurley and Libby are doing laundry in the Hatch, Libby wonders if the washer and dryer are newer than anything else in the hatch. * Following the failed filming of Driveshaft's diaper commercial, London's famous Battersea Power Station http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battersea_Power_Station can be seen in the background as the director and Charlie exit the stage (17:25 mark). **A Widmore Construction banner can be seen on the Power Station in the flashback, making this the first reference to Widmore in the series. * This episode is rated TV-14-L. Production notes *Harold Perrineau (Michael) does not appear in this episode. **Daniel Dae Kim (Jin) appears without speaking lines. *The traditional flashback woosh is used in this episode to signify the end of Charlie's dreams also. *The original idea for the Butties diapers commercial was to have Drive Shaft appear on the famous Abbey Road pelican crossing in diapers, but they couldn't get the permit from the city to do it. *This episode marks the first character appearance of Simon Pace played by Robin Atkin Downes. He would later be played by John Henry Canavan in the Season 3 episode . Bloopers and continuity errors * In the season 1 episode "The Moth," Charlie's brother says that, when his child was born, he and Charlie were out looking for a fix. However, in this episode, Charlie visits Liam's daughter in the hospital just after she is born, and then returns home to scold his brother for not being there. * Libby tells Hurley that she can't believe he doesn't remember her from the plane, because he stepped on her foot when he was getting on after barely making the flight. She says she remembers him, the last person to get on the flight, arriving sweaty and wearing headphones, and then stepping on her foot. However, Libby was seated in the tail section, and thus Hurley could not have passed her on his way to his seat. Additionally, in the flashback scene to Hurley catching the flight, it shows that while he was the last person on the flight, he did not put his headphones on until after he had already sat down. Deleted scenes *A deleted scene from this episode is an extended version of Hurley and Libby's laundry scene. Hurley asked what Libby did before the crash and she told him that she was a psychologist specializing in marriage and children. Libby asked Hurley what he did before the crash and he informed her of his lottery winnings. Hurley was amazed to see that Libby believed him about this, leading Hurley to ask Libby to go on a walk in what would become their first date. *A deleted scene from this episode shows Ana Lucia and Eko having a conversation about the Others. Ana Lucia informs Eko of Jack's plan to venture in the jungle after the Others. Eko doesn't agree with the idea, thinking they are safer where they are. Ana Lucia asks what happened to the Eko that killed two of them the night of the crash, he tells her he is sitting next to her, leaning on a tree. Music The Season 2 soundtrack includes two cues from this episode. The episode's opening music appears as "Charlie's Dream". Charlie's theme appears as "Charlie's Temptation", the theme's first statement on a soundtrack. Analysis Recurring themes * Charlie has several dreams of Aaron in danger. * Hurley says "Do I know you from somewhere?" to Libby, but he can't remember from where. * Charlie starts a fire as a distraction so he can kidnap the baby. * In Charlie's place, a Drive Shaft "Drive Across America Tour" poster hangs for their concert on 8/15/2000. * In the first dream sequence, Charlie is wearing the words "FATE" on his left hand. * A stuffed polar bear can be seen in the giant crib in which Drive Shaft shoots their Butties diapers commercial. * Charlie wears a T-shirt featuring two foxes. * Charlie's father disapproved of Charlie's musical ambitions and of Drive Shaft. * Liam misses the birth of his daughter Megan while out getting a fix. * Liam drops Megan and is kicked out of his home. * Throughout the episode, Charlie tries, but usually fails to be a surrogate father for Aaron. * One of Charlie's songs includes the words "I'm crying in the rain". * Charlie tries to redeem his previous drug use by saving the baby. * Mr. Eko says: "It is said that when John the Baptist baptized Jesus the skies opened up and a dove flew down from the sky. This told John something -- that he had cleansed this man of all his sins. That he had freed him. Heaven came much later." * After pressure from Charlie, Claire agrees to let Eko baptize Aaron. * Charlie's family repeatedly urge him to "save them" in his first dream. * Sawyer tries to teach Hurley how to play Blackjack with a pack of cards from the hatch. Cultural references * The Baptism of Christ: The painting hanging on the wall in Charlie's dream is The Baptism of Christ by Andrea del Verrocchio and assisted on by Leonardo da Vinci. It depicts the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. Charlie's vision on the beach is based on this painting, with Claire and his mother assuming the positions of the angels to the left. Charlie's mother is the one that in the original painting was executed by Leonardo. Although Jesus and John do not appear in Charlie's vision, the angels appear (Claire and his mother), as does the dove that flew toward Charlie. In the painting, the dove is released from God's hands. * The Bible. Mr. Eko tells the story to Claire of the events surrounding John's baptism of Jesus. ** In the Old Testament, God used both water, and fire to punish sinners. * Big Star: A poster of the acclaimed 70s indie rock band's name and logo can be seen in Charlie's apartment. * Star Wars: Sawyer calls Hurley "Jabba", a character from the film franchise. * Pink Floyd: The famous Battersea Power Station featured on the album cover from Pink Floyd's Animals: can be seen in the background of one of Charlie's flashbacks. * Yesterday and Today: The scene where Charlie's father chops off the doll's head (as a butcher in his flashback) was an homage to this Beatle's album, "Yesterday and Today" (where band members were featured among slabs of meat and decapitated dolls). * "He's Evil": This song by the The Kinks is heard playing in Charlie’s apartment when he comes home. It was also heard being sung by Charlie in . * "Papa Loves Mambo": This song by Perry Como is heard on the record player when Hurley and Libby do their laundry * Bonanza: Sawyer calls Hurley "Hoss". Eric "Hoss" Cartwright was a big man, the warm and lovable middle son of Ben Cartwright in the TV cowboy show that aired from 1959 to 1973. * Love Connection: When Hurley asks Sawyer if Libby is cool, Sawyer asks him if he has a love connection brewing. Love Connection was a popular American talk show television series/game show (1983-1994). * The Beverly Hillbillies: Sawyer teases Hurley about doing his laundry with Libby and refers to him as Jethro. Jethro Bodine is a fictional character in the 1960s television sitcom. * Voltron: Defender of the Universe: For Christmas, Liam receives a Voltron toy, based on the animated television series. Literary techniques * In Charlie's dream-vision, his mother tells him that he is "special." * When Locke watches Charlie being dragged out of Claire's tent by Kate, the same camera movement is used as the one from 's ending. It is used on the same person and for the same purpose. * Charlie's mother gives him a piano and tells him, "Someday you're going to get us out of here," foreshadowing Charlie's actions at the end of Season 3 in , when Charlie plays "Good Vibrations" on a keyboard, in order to help get the survivors off the island. * Hurley recognizes Libby from somewhere, but he can't remember where. It would later be revealed in that she was in the same mental hospital as Hurley. Storyline analysis * Charlie fears that Locke is taking his place as Aaron's surrogate father. * Charlie tries to get back into Claire's good books, but fails. * Hurley expresses interest in Libby. Episode connections Episode references * Locke tells Charlie that he once let him choose if he would continue to use drugs, but now he is making the choice for him. * Libby tells Hurley that she remembers him being the last person to board the plane and that he was sweaty and wearing headphones. * Charlie refers to the visions of Walt. * Charlie reminds Locke that Kate saw a horse. * Charlie tells Locke that he and Eko had burned the Nigerian plane. He later returns to his secret stash of Virgin Mary statues from the plane. * Ana Lucia asks Jack what happened when he confronted the Others. Episode allusions *As Locke observes Charlie being thrown out of Claire tent, the camera pans around his head. *We learn how Liam came to live in Australia. *When Charlie arrives at his apartment, "He's Evil" by The Kinks is playing. External links *Full episode script (PDF format) References da:Fire + Water de:2.12 Feuer und Wasser es:Fire + Water fr:2x12 it:Fuoco e acqua nl:Fire ± Water pl:Fire + Water pt:Fire + Water ru:Огонь + вода Category:Episodes Category:Season 2 Category:Charlie-centric Category:Episodes that are Rated TV-14-L